What would normally be a mundane blog post from the Amazon Developer Blog on Digital Rights Management has turned into just the opposite thanks to some sticky wording. It would appear that Amazon is expecting users to be logged into the Amazon Appstore every time they use an app that has DRM tied to it. The exact wording is as follows:

“Any app that has Amazon DRM applied to it will require users to have installed and signed-in to the Amazon Appstore client to access the app. When an app is accessed by the user, it will verify with the Amazon Appstore device service as to whether the user has an entitlement to the app. If the user does not sign in or does not have an entitlement to that app, then the app will not be usable. However, any user can gain an entitlement by purchasing the app through Amazon.”

What makes the blurb so confusing is that it doesn’t say if users have to be logged in to verify entitlement every time they use a DRM protected app. It could just be that you log in once to verify, and then the verification is stored locally on your device.

The fact that Amazon says “When an app is accessed by the user, it will verify with the Amazon Appstore … ” leads you to believe you have to login every time. It doesn’t say “When an app is first accessed by the user … ” but Amazon may not have thought the details were that important in a blog post.

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